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Obama team takes its climate change agenda abroad
By DINA CAPPIELLO,Associated Press Writer AP - Saturday, March 28
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has a single mission as it heads to the climate change negotiating table for the first time on Sunday: convincing other countries the United States cares about global warming.
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After eight years on the sidelines, the U.S. delegation's new leadership says it is ready to assume a central role in crafting a new agreement to slash greenhouse gases. But whether the world's second largest source of heat-trapping pollution will be ready to sign onto a new deal by the end of the year could depend on Congress.
To showcase America's commitment, the State Department dispatched U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern to Bonn, Germany, to attend the first of a series of largely technical meetings, beginning Sunday. The talks are hoped to lay the groundwork for a new international climate agreement to be signed at a conference in December in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Stern, in a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press during a London stopover, said his participation in the talks is to punctuate the U.S.'s newfound determination to address the climate problem.
"I frankly thought it was important for me to come and make the first statement on behalf of the United States and say we're back, we're serious, we're here, we're committed and we're going to try to get this thing done," said Stern. "That is why I am here. That is the point I want to convey. We want to convey that we mean it."
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is hosting the Bonn talks, said participants "will be very excited" to hear Stern outline the basic principles that will guide the U.S. in the upcoming negotiating process.
They clearly are expecting a new tone after eight years during which the Bush administration repeatedly made clear its disdain for any climate discussions whose aim was a commitment to mandatory greenhouse gas reductions.
This time the U.S. delegation represents the views of a White House committed to mandatory action to address climate change. And unlike 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was drafted, there is now a Democratic-controlled Congress moving to embrace mandatory limits on greenhouse gases as well.
At the time of Kyoto, the United States lacked support for mandatory actions to achieve the reductions the U.S. had signed onto. As a result, the Kyoto accord was never ratified by Congress. The Bush administration later rejected it outright, citing the lack of participation from developing countries.
The lack of involvement by developing countries and the cost of emission cuts in form of higher energy bills _ issues that for years dominated the U.S. debate over the Kyoto accord _ have not disappeared. They are likely to continue to haunt the Obama administration as it takes over the negotiations.
But President Barack Obama has already taken significant strides to reduce U.S. greenhouse gases and wants Congress to enact a cap-and-trade program that would cut global warming pollution 80 percent by mid-century.
"The president has embarked on a strong domestic program already and there is much more coming," Stern said at a briefing in Berlin on Friday in advance of the talks.
Stern said the American position on an international climate agreement will be framed by what happens in Congress. It's not realistic for the U.S. to enter into an agreement that doesn't match what Congress plans to enact, he argued.
The reductions expected to be required by Congress will be the basis for what the U.S. can commit to reducing in any international agreement, Stern said.
But can Congress, which is also juggling ways to respond to an economic recession and deal with other priorities such as health care reform, come through on climate change?
"This will be a big, big fight to get the domestic piece done," Stern conceded.
Can the U.S. balance European expectations with what is politically viable?
Many European countries want the U.S. to adopt stronger short-term targets, equal to a 25-40 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. Obama has called for reaching 1990 levels by then, a roughly 15 percent cut.
Stern has already warned European leaders that their demands will lead to stalemate.
"Reducing 25-40 percent below 1990 levels would be a good idea if it were doable," he said at a recent conference in Washington, but that it seems "beyond the realm of the feasible."
In Bonn, the U.S. team is expected to spend most of its time listening and forming relationships, rather than discussing concrete proposals.
That "is unfortunate given the intense timetable between now and Copenhagen, but understandable," said Jennifer Havercamp, who leads Environmental Defense Fund's international climate negotiations team. "It will not achieve a lot of substantive progress in the negotiations because the Obama team is so new."
___
Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera contributed reporting from Berlin.
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